Connor Rooke > Recent Status Updates

WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN

WH-

Yeah man, mouth off to Darth Vader, that will definitely work out well for you

WHAT THE FUCK

Coming back for my first re-read in quite a few years and it really stands out the change in voice with John Arcudi joing Mignola as co-writer. It's a shame that the clearest example of it is making Roger dumber. It feels a little...small? Mean, in a certain sense?

"And now he walked through dark seas."

Actually, no, not gonna find out. The voice is too...casual, too tongue-in-cheek, too "well THAT just happened" and it kills any possibility of a proper horror atmosphere like a bullet through the skull. Can't do it.

I enjoyed the Twisted Ones most of the way through until it kind of fizzled out in the end. Here's hoping this one has the reverse happen.

Maybe this would bug me less if it wasn't all first person narration? Or if it wasn't so obviously going out of the way to be casual?

Please stop making references to famous books. I don't know what these references are supposed to achieve, but if the best way you can find to describe your work is to compare it to someone else's, that feels like a weakness in the writing.
Is this valid criticism or am I just being curmudgeonly, I can't tell

Just once I want to see a complaint about Papyrus that says WHY it's bad, instead of just making a joke that relies on the idea that it's a font for simpletons and those lacking in moral fortitude.
Comic sans was inspired by the lettering in fucking WATCHMEN, for fuck's sake

I'm torn, because the main character listing which books she's taking in the divorce feels very much like "see, here's my nerd cred", but also she lists Pratchett so I'm inclined to approve.
But also also she says she’s leaving the Philip K Dick books because "I never liked androids anyway" and fuck that, I've read a lot of Dick and only the one has anything to do with androids. I don't think it's even in my top 5.

I love this

Io the Kite Lord's daughter, fucking rules

Man this book kicks ass

"Vimes reached out and steadied himself."

I can't say for certain but if it's just a coincidence how many echoes of Discworld there are in Fallen London I would be absolutely shocked

"The hardest part of faith is the silence."

"I put one hand on my chest to trap her promise there."

'"To be an American is to be a believer!" he shouted. "But y'all don't even understand what you believe in.'"

"Slow as slow but steady as steady"

I first read this in 2017. It, uh, feels different coming back after covid. Hrm.

"Maybe he's been missed. But I'll lay you anything you name he's not been mourned."

"A silver key locks out ghosts" that's the good stuff

The first page of the first story and I see where Mike Mignola found his Crooked Man 50-odd years later

Oh, an "elephant" then

Gotta get Denis Villeneuve to read these books somehow

Bastard. Bastard. Bastard.

"The impressions of his fingers are on all these quarreling, handsome people but the light is bad on such days as this and it can be terribly hard to see them"

The *inhumation*, what a pun